The United Kingdom took a week to stop imports of meat after the foot and mouth epidemic, say the experts

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The United Kingdom took a week to prevent meat and other animal products that entering the country from Germany last month, despite German officials warning that exports could be affected by an epidemic of Feet and mouth diseases, according to border experts.

Witnesses told deputies on Tuesday that Great Britain had been slow to respond to the news of the very contagious virus, detected in a herd of water buffalo near Berlin, due to defects of his postBrexit border regime.

Helen Buckingham, an chartered environmental health practitioner, told the House of Commons, Food and Rural Affairs that, if the import restrictions on meat and German animal products entered into force on 11 January, it took an additional seven days for the British border system to be updated.

“Meanwhile, things have succeeded, and it was rather remarkable,” said Buckingham, noting that she had been contacted by the United Kingdom’s domestic authorities asking what they should do with the German products recently arrived from animal origin, such as Lactrum.

“We do not have enough clear communication by descending the central government’s pipe on what to do. My colleagues (Border Control Post) will tell you that advice on what to do and how to manage this kind of thing did not come quickly enough, ”she added.

Lucy Manzano, head of port health and public protection at the Dover Port Health Authority, said that the largest port in the kingdom with the United Kingdom border regime.

The automated release process – known as the “synchronized decision contingency function”, or Todcof, was created In addition to the implementation of the new post-Brexit border of the United Kingdom with Europe to avoid delays in the event of capacity problems for control stations.

Manzano said: “Products in the scope of FMD (foot and mouth disease) controls were able to automatically erase the system via Todcof.”

The Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs did not immediately respond to a request for comments.

Announcing a ban on imports in January, Defra promised to do “everything you need” to protect farmers and said there were no cases of foot and mouth in the United Kingdom.

Viral disease can spread between living animals in close contact with each other, animals eating food or coming into contact with dead animals that have been infected with virus or environmental contamination.

An epidemic in 2007 in the United Kingdom has spread on truck tires.

In 2001, the United Kingdom experienced one of the worst epidemics of the disease, which led to the murder of infected animals and in contact with 6.5 million. The direct cost of the epidemic has been estimated at more than 3 billion pounds sterling, with an additional 5 billion pounds of losses suffered by the tourism industry.